THE DOWER HOUSE

he domicile of the Dowager Baroness is situate at the edge of the park. It is very near a lane where there is a minor entrance to the park. The road leads up to Crapulent Towers. There is a very small staff, a butler, a cook, a couple of live out maids.and, of course Shattlidge, the dowager's 'companion' (q.v. below).

Nowadays the term 'dowager' in a title is heard less and less. The more modern approach would be to distinguish between the dowager and her daughter-in-law by using the titles 'Lady Elizabeth Crapulence' and 'Lady Honoria Crapulence'. However the dowager is very old and very old-fashioned and insists on the formerly universal standard of 'Dowager Lady Crapulence'.

The dowager is quite unlike her son, the Baron. In fact, she doesn't have much time for him. She gets on much better with one of her other sons, Pereguine (Perry). The Baron rarely visits her. She feigns exaggerated deafness and senility in his presence, but she likes the Baroness, who visits her frequently. This hostility towards her eldest son probably stems from the closure of the the family industrial enterprises. This was an astute financial move by the Baron as he saw that ever increasing wages and the decline in the ability to compete, the need for considerable investment, and the enormous amount of money tied up with quite large freehold premises wasn't sustainable.

Although the dowager is old fashioned, and wouldn't accept employees or anyone from the working or middle classes on equal terms, she does believe in a certain sense of responsibility, a sort of 'Noblesse Oblige', and was outraged that the employees, some of whom had worked for the family all their lives and were very loyal, should suddenly find themselves with no work and many of whom with little prospect of finding alternative employment, especially the more elderly. She can at times be quite kindly, but the younger members of the family are still a little in awe of her.

Despite her age, she still has an very upright posture, an enormous appetite and eats very well. Her other passion is horse racing, mostly now watched on television. She spends a considerable time on the telephone to her bookmaker, although she only admits to having a 'mild flutter' occasionally. In fact she does rather well. She attends mass regularly every morning. Although of a rather earlier era, the only person I can think of that she might resemble to a limited extent would be Mary of Teck.

Shattlidge has worked for the family since she left school at fifteen. At first a kitchen maid and then a parlour maid she became the dowager's lady's maid in her twenties (obviously she wasn't the dowager then). She would be in her seventies now and is now officially her 'companion'. What this means in practise is that she is a lady's maid and general dogsbody for most of the day, but dines with the dowager and sits with her in the evening.

She is devoted to the dowager, and the dowager is in truth rather fond of her, but would never say it. In fact the dowager in recent years has taken a perverse malicious enjoyment in trying to find fault with her or sending her on unnecessary errands or the like.